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Elephant in the Room: Zoe Quinn

absolutezilch

Hey Big Zam!

Hahaha, leave it up to me to bring the ruckus on your tukhus of a succubus? or victim? of the rest of the internet to a relatively serene place! Zoe Quinn, the game developer of a game known as Depression Quest, a game that I haven't played and therefore can not make judgements on, is someone who has come under fire for being what is wrong with game journalism as a whole: a girl who has "allegedly" slept with five different guys in the game journalism industry who have significant pull to get her game promoted. Some, like, InternetAristocrat have gone so far as to imply that incidents like this prove time and time again, that legitimacy on the internet is failing leading to the demise of the platform significantly faster than had occured in traditional media. Now, so far, I've only heard one side of the story and have gone through only a few comments that have defended her. I will read up on it more but this was just so gosh darn juicy, I just had to make a thread!

Here's the link to the Quinnspiracy meme:
LINK

And here's IA's rant about Game Journalism and Zoe Quinn. Warning: He uses pretty offensive language and gets incredibly personal:
Click to play

I think this will garner significantly lesser attention than the ALS thread but whatever... floor's open if you'd like to discuss!
What's your stance on the matter? Do you feel like she's milking the system by using touchy subjects like cyber-bullying and feminism to promote her game while spreading lies and sleeping around? Or is she rightfully a victim of cyber-bullying and it doesn't matter who she sleeps with as long as the game's profits go to charity?

51 Replies

absolutezilch

Hey Big Zam!

Shit. That's the wrong IA video. That's the follow-up on the matter. Here's the original video:
Click to play

JohnStephen

This shit annoys me so much. It's ruining the video games industry, it's ruining journalism, it's hurting gender equality far more than it's helping it. Yet people still buy into it.

If you don't buy into their shit you're literally scum.

KorporalKitty

PAM

@JohnStephen: To be fair gaming journalism has always been shitty.

LordKevinIV

@absolutezilch:
Really opened my eyes on how corrupt even the gaming news is too, Zoe Quinn and her slew of dudes she's fucked are NGF's

absolutezilch

Hey Big Zam!

Hey I think all your opinions are valid. I'm just throwing it out there though: she was definitely "harrassed" if she got called on her phone and had made threats to her but yeah, there's absolutely no proof she offered and people just jumped on the bandwagon because it gave them a reason to hate.

Her alliance just attacked a clique who honestly, it probably wasn't their community because their postings were anonymous but what a terrible way to handle it, not just by Zoe Quinn but by everyone on the internet who just ended up bullying this secluded community of defenceless people. I don't have an agenda here and I'm not taking sides. She probably was attacked in the past for putting her game on Greenlight but the way she's been going about it is wrong. Still, it's hard to say though because this whole ordeal been's based on word of mouth and screenshots that COULD be out of context and/or fabricated but still, social "justice" warriors as they're so called are the biggest fucking hypocrites on the planet.

INTERNET SOLDIERZ 64EVER.

ADashofRainbow

from what I've heard (I didn't watch the video, sorry) most the people she supposedly slept with haven't even written articles about her game, that frankly I've never even heard of until this whole affair. I don't think what she did was right at all. Cheating on your boyfriend with not just one but 5 other guys is bad no matter what the reason. But I really don't think what she's done deserves that much attention, the people harassing her are scum and the people defending her saying she's an inspiration to women are even bigger scum.

Deleted user

@absolutezilch:Zoe seems like a pretty shitty person with a love of drama, but honestly who she sleeps with or pretending her tumblr account was hacked doesn't affect things all that much. If you want to talk about corruption in the gaming industry than look no further than paid reviews or IGN.

mrbutthole

Are you a thirteen year old girl? No one here should really give a shit. We all came to this place for dicks jokes, not gossip.

absolutezilch

Hey Big Zam!

@ADashofRainbow: IA says otherwise in his video, that someone she slept with did actually write an article on Kotaku but @simsoy is right; none of it should actually move the mind of a consumer one way or the other without hearing about impressions of the game from other people and most of the accusations are just based on word of mouth or out-of-context screenshots.
Here's the thing though: if a large AAA producer does decide to do a paid review, that'll come out of the woodworks when they come under scrutiny by the public on release of their accounts - I hardly see any AAA game being rated out of context. Fuck ratings though, I honestly hear about games more from word of mouth more than anything else. The thing is if someone is able to lull you in to a false sense of security which is what most indie devs are capable of doing because they TALK to people, it makes a bigger difference. But yeah you're right, the whole system is corrupt which is why I'm glad that this story is getting attention because people are going to be increasingly more cautious about who they support now.

@mrbutthole: "Oh hey, look at what happens when I click on CHAT. I have a multitude of topics to choose from! Gee golly, I better go post on one that I don't really care about so I can be a pest there!"

ghostface

Reference

@mrbutthole:I come here to gossip

Zac

Sheriff

@mrbutthole:Woah... Only dickbutt jokes

ReservoirDog

That's a pretty decent Jesse Ventura impression.

Mike

OVERLORD

I've literally never heard of this woman before.

absolutezilch

Hey Big Zam!

@Mike: I think the story only gained traction very recently. It's floating around on YouTube comments and stuff which is where I read about it first.

Brofessional

honestly, people who are pieces of shit (like her) shouldnt be given large roles in trying to change something for the better, it only makes the cause look worse.

Brofessional

Not that i agree with everything that feminists attack, but there are a few legitimate cases ive seen every once in a while.

Zackizzle

Who?

redshankinvento

BANNED

@absolutezilch: Actually this article debunks her bullshit lies

redshankinvento

BANNED

@Brofessional: Those are probably from ACTUAL feminists, you know, the kind that strive for equality and that good shit. Not the cunts who bully people for critiquing female people on the internet. Like the recent thing where JonTron gave legitimate critique on the way Aneeta Sarkeesian brings her points across. He was accused of being a misogynist because he didn't give special treatment to a woman.

JohnStephen

@D4haka97:
That album is actually talked about and mentioned in the first video (and I didn't watch the second).

redshankinvento

BANNED

@JohnStephen: Ah, I was gonna watch it later, guess I'll watch it now

AwYeah

@super_legit

@absolutezilch:Watched it. This video doesn't seem to have a lot of evidence to support anything, and to be honest, does somewhat seem to come from a place of sexism a bit. I don't think this would garner this kind of reaction if it were a man. That being said, I'm not supporting Zoe Quinn of the cheating with those guys is true. It just shows she's a shitty person for cheating, cheating with a married man and her boss. The only thing close to an ethical break (career-wise) here is sleeping with a journalist, and that's (mostly) on Nathan Grayson, not her. It's a game developer's imperative to get the best reviews for a game, and most try to accomplish that by just making a good game. Some developers just super hype the game at an event like E3, and others make a game so specific they know it will attract the attention of certain people, like the people who make games like Gone Home. Zoe Quinn may have had sex for it, I'm not even sure of that.

This seems to mostly be a fight between social issue warriors and the people on the other side of that spectrum, who I don't have a name for, but I'll just call Channers for now because there seems to be a lot of them on the Chan sites. It's a fight between people who see injustice in everything even when there isn't, and people who believe that these people are trying to gain power by taking it away from them with values they don't have. Both sides suck. As an example, I'll use Bioshock Infinite. The Social Media Warriors will wonder why Booker was a man instead of a woman, why weren't there any gay couples, and will write about the game, saying they won't buy it because Elizabeth is just a "damsel in distress", despite the fact that she isn't. The Channers will blow up at this, say these people are idiots, and then will complain about how much you as Booker had to rely on a woman and how Rosalind Lutece should have been a man because she wouldn't have had an education in that time period, and will then make jokes about tits and women not being able to vote back then The rest of the world saw neither of these problems and decided that game was one of the top 3 games of that year.

I guess what I'm saying is that both of these groups suck, that's why nobody is talking about it. Both camps will keep up their fighting, and everyone else will do their best to ignore them, which is why this isn't a bigger deal.

In closing, I want the time I wasted watching that video back.

redshankinvento

BANNED

@AwYeah: No, there's heaps of evidence, there's a lot of articles about this and I thought it was about Zoe Quinn at first, but it's turned into breaking of journalist ethics and stuff. And also the way that everyone is for some reason just hushing about everything and tried to censor people who talked about it. That's when it really blew up. I just think that these shitty people did a lot of things wrong. And the sleeping with 5 dudes part, it's been confirmed via facebook messages and a video showing him scrolling through the messages. She basically slept with a bunch of dudes her married boss for one to get publishment on her "game" and stuff. And for some reason a ton of journalists she knows are giving her money on pantreon. This isn't as easy as "one group is overly sensitive and the other is just a bunch of assholes" The gaming press did wrong things, not the game consumer

AwYeah

@super_legit

@D4haka97: I'm not saying she didn't do things wrong, or the gaming press. They definitely did. And I said I didn't see the proof in that video, in which case, what I assumed was correct is correct, she's a shitty person. I was just saying that it seems to me that it was a lot of shitty oversensitive people did shitty things and made a shitty game, and that other people, many of whom are definitely acting shitty in an equal and opposite way, are making a fuss that this isn't a big deal. Every news outlet has had breaches of ethics, and with almost all of those controversies, people supported both sides. I didn't say anything about blaming the gaming consumer, but I also won't blame the game press as a whole for the slip up of some of its members, especially of ones I don't read in the first place.

redshankinvento

BANNED

@AwYeah:The gamer's don't because they don't want to take that from them, they don't want corrupt people telling them wht product is good and what other one isn't. The gamer side isn't in the wrong. And in case you didn't know, after censoring them failed, the press resorted to shitting on everyone who disagrees with them expecting the gamers to not get angry at that.
Also if you want to see evidence, just google gamersgate controversy

AwYeah

@super_legit

@D4haka97:Gamers are not one group. I am a gamer. My girlfriend, is a gamer. I have many gamer friends. I did not care about this, and still don't. It was some shitty people being shitty. I hadn't even heard about this until I clicked into this thread. I never read any of these people's reviews. I've never played one of their games. While I'm sure that the social justice warriors (SJWs) in the business are banding together to defend her as one of their own, I feel like the reason most companies are not covering this story much because it's two small demographics fighting it out while the majority does not care, and wouldn't read what was coming out, anyway.

The point of my posts is not to defend Zoe Quinn, she seems like a generally unpleasant, shitty and untalented person. However, I believe that as a game designer, she should be critiqued on her ability to make a game, and on her ethical breach in sleeping with a member of the press and not disclosing it, and it seems like a lot of people are up in arms about this not because of that, but because she is an SJW. The course of action I am going to take, and I hope more people will do the same, is to simply not buy anymore of her games, not read the journalists' articles who lie and cover things up, and just pretty much ignore this. I feel like most gamers are going to do exactly that. She will only make money from her fan base, the journalists will lose readership and then likely their jobs. There's no reason to get worked up about it.

redshankinvento

BANNED

@AwYeah:Well the problem with the SJW thing is her claiming her tolerance and how she wants equality and all that bullshit, while she herself starts hating on people on 4chan because some random anon dude said her game was shit resulting in more retards piling on these guys who've done nothing wrong and telling them that they're the worst people alive. But people are more angry that she can just fuck someone to get her bad games some press and to make herself more well known. And yeah she's a fucking shitty person.

Zac

Sheriff

Thats a lot of words

LV_Wizard

Lord_Haiku

Before anybody posts anything contributing to the main topic of this thread, I would like to "Clear the air" with a little vulgar humor, and put our minds back in the gutter.

Click to play

Now you may continue

absolutezilch

Hey Big Zam!

@AwYeah: Yeah, that could be a reason why everyone's not discussing it but I also think that it's the intrinsic double standard that lies with the fact that a girl could do something henious to put herself at a competitive advantage. It's a total taboo subject.
But small places like CHAT is where this discussion should be encouraged because it helps reinforce our decisions not to trust the big guns. Kotaku has always been a clusterfuck and I'm glad I rely on the smaller folk like Mega64, TheSw1tcher nd InsideGaming. They seem a little less exploitable.

It's just such a pity though because you hear about journalism ethics and everything about this story is just so far removed from that. Anyway, hope you guys are having a nice day! xD

LV_Wizard

Lord_Haiku

@absolutezilch: Yeah man, labor day was yesterday, and I got an extra day off for "Staff Development" so I have a 3 day school week this week. Also Destiny comes out in a week, so I'm pretty excited about that.

absolutezilch

Hey Big Zam!

@LV_Wizard: That's cool. I brought a Wii U recently so I'm excited about... ehh... damn it.


No seriously though, friggin Hyrule Warrious, Super Smash Bros, Bayo 2 and Mario Kart 8. This is gonna be a fun multiplayer year.

AwYeah

@super_legit

@D4haka97: Good, you are so close! I used to have a job where I was basically the only non-SJW, and here's the thing. People are right for wanting equality, and dammit, they deserve equality. There are two main problems with the SJWs, however. The first is that they want to be heard, to be seen, to be the center of attention more then they actually want to help the problem they want equality for. The second thing, is that they often decide that whatever past slights have been held against someone erases flaws from their character, which it does not. I will provide an example in a bit.

The problem is that when she started spewing her bullshit at the people who panned her game, some people stepped forward and attacked her for things other than the game. They use the game and the breach of ethics as a cover, but they're really mad at her for being a liberal feminist in the games industry, and the perception that people like her are somehow gaining control. I feel like you, young one, are considering this path, and it is not a fun path. Ask yourself, would you, and some of the people up in arms about this, honestly be as angry if they had learned that a male developer had gotten a game reviewer a hooker?

The example I want to use is a black man steals a car in an average middle class town where everyone is middle class, more or less. The SJWs come out and say that he has been held back economically all his life, abused by an uncaring system, and generally mistreated, and thus should not be help responsible for his crime. At the same time, other people are coming out and saying that because he's black, he poses even more of a threat to the community, and thus should be locked up even longer, 20 to life, and that the police should watch other black people more closely. I just want him to get his 2-4 years in prison, because he's just a dude who stole a car, no more, no less

redshankinvento

BANNED

@AwYeah:You see, I agree with you on the most part, for example, while Quinn is a horrible piece of filth who I despise as a person for her actions, it is true a lot of people are just dogpiling on her without focusing on the real issue. But I don't hate her for being a feminist or a woman, REAL feminists that care about REAL equality (not bashing on men because they think that critisism equals misogyny) should be supported in their quest for equality. I hate her for being a shitty human being, because that's the only side I've seen of her, and I don't think she's an actual equalist since she seems to only care about controversy to SEEM like she's a good person and to trick people into believing that
example: her whole schpiel about how asking transgender women who wanted to join a charity game jam having to come out before it started (to be sure no men would take advantage of this) was oppressive and moraly wrong. And her misconception that the winner would get no money for her creation and bashing on this, to the point of the jam being fucked over and not being able to get funding just because Zoe has friends in the industry. 4Chan had to be the good guy on the internet by donating to them and even then, the charity kickstarted got hacked and shit.

I hate that this shit exists

KorporalKitty

PAM

I don't give a shit about most of it but the fact that people are still supporting her dispute the fact that she said she raped her boyfriend (it she did in one of the videos) and giving her money really pisses me off.

redshankinvento

BANNED

@LouAPinto:She didn't rape him

redshankinvento

BANNED

@LouAPinto:It's just that in her own retarded definition of rape, which says if you have sex with someone you're cheating on, you're raping them

AwYeah

@super_legit

@D4haka97:seriously? she's just the worst

redshankinvento

BANNED

@AwYeah:Ye, you right

B0r1ng

Uganda be kidding me.

B0r1ng

That said, I haven't heard much on this Quinnspiracy thing. I read some posts here, but honestly some of you guys seem set out to write speeches on this thread sometimes.

All I can say is, game journalism sucks. What Zoe did in terms of cheating, that's more a personal matter; and yeah anyone involved that promoted her should have gone open about it when the "scandal" came out. I still feel a lot of this is set in rumors, only convoluted even more by the use of terms like "feminism," "sexism," and for whatever reason "rape." Nothing wrong with feminism, I just don't really see why it got mixed in on this.

absolutezilch

Hey Big Zam!

@B0r1ng: It's a very long-winded elaborate tale but the basic gist of it was using feminazi tactics to encourage the bullying of an online community that may have been set-up.
Rape only applies if she goes by HER DEFINITION of it which is actually pretty BS to begin with so there you go.

Feminism itself isn't wrong. Like AwYeah said, feminism is a good thing when it is used to promote equality between all genders. However, when the scales tip the other way and a woman abuses her professional position for personal gain, it's morally questionable.

I don't hate Zoe Quinn though. She's not the issue, in my opinion.

B0r1ng

@absolutezilch: Who was the bullied online community, that Wizardchan thing? Either way, this just seems overblown like any insert name herespiracy. Also doesn't help that the "gaming community," some of the most vocal people online, is somewhat involved.

redshankinvento

BANNED

@B0r1ng:Yeah, it was wizardchan, some anon dude called her a cunt because her game is bad so she decided to send her mongrel fans to just harrass them non-stop

redshankinvento

BANNED

And I don't think it's an overblown thing. I think it's an actual issue that people are getting angry about.

B0r1ng

@D4haka97: What's the issue? I'm sorry, but I seriously can't see what the actual problem is. Is it her cheating with others involved in the game industry, her approach to criticism, or her arbitrary principles? Because, only one of these points seems worth a debate, and it's not even that new of a debate anyways.

absolutezilch

Hey Big Zam!

@B0r1ng: It's probably the first one. You're right, as in, people have known that gaming journalism has been corrupt for ages... but now people have a concrete example to justify rubbing the journalism industry's face in the dirt for and the further this information is being pushed down, the more the Streisand effect is pushing it even further out there and causing it to be talked about more.
Personally, I am nonplussed by the situation as are a lot of people who actively play video games so we're sort of talking about it but not actively censuring people. I guess I'm justifying doing my part by sharing this information to the one or two people on this forum who don't know about it yet.

redshankinvento

BANNED

@B0r1ng:Well, her being a shitty person isn't the important part, there's a lot of people like that. It's the part where the game press seems to be corrupt, it starts with sex for publicity and the unwillingness of the companies involved to punish their employees for breach of ethics and their desperate struggle to try and censor everyone and try to make sure noone talks about this. And an issue I myself have after reading stephen totilo's newest post is that he keeps telling people that "it's being dealt with internally" and to "trust him" while he's talking about how they'll be transparent from now on. It's very annoying to me that they can just neglect it without repercussion

B0r1ng

@absolutezilch: When did I mention corruption? Anyway, I'd be happy to take credit for that comment. The only problem I'd see in this would be in whoever is censoring the topic from being discussed. It's out, whoever is involved has to deal with it and at the very least make a statement about the subject if it's aiming to be a professional group like Kotaku.

@D4haka97:
Well not to defend Kotaku, but if it is an internal affair that's probably the best statement that they might be able to give at the moment. Again, the only problem I'd see would be in stopping people from commenting about this. I'm also not too sure what repercussion you'd expect other than firing anyone who actually did promote Zoe or her work in exchange for sex with her or anything along those lines.

absolutezilch

Hey Big Zam!

@B0r1ng: I inferred from when you said "only one of these points seems worth a debate, and it's not even that new of a debate anyways" that you were talking about the well-known corruption in gaming journalism. I don't quite know what the situation is even after having seen those videos three times because the IA guy just keeps bring up new subjects really quickly and I don't want to revisit those videos because I'm tired. I remember him saying that the Chief Editor did release a statement about how the matter would be dealt internally. I don't remember anything beyond that. I guess it's over; now we're just kind of waiting for the flames to settle. One thing's for sure though: Kotaku's reputation has been pretty damaged by now.
This hasn't affected me at all though. I don't think differently about anything or anyone since this all began so I guess you're right that the result and point of the debate is moot. In fact, everything.. will all be.. moot... absolute zilch. #illuminati

redshankinvento

BANNED

Calm down NGF. Post has been censored.

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